Tag Archive: Star Wars Disney

Friday Disney announced it is pulling the Star Wars exclusive licensing deal from Mike Richardson’s Dark Horse Comics at the end of the year–a deal that gave fans the very best Star Wars stories written in the franchise over the past 20 years. Disney owns Marvel Comics and so this was not a big surprise, although it is disappointing to see something so successful going from one of the “little guy” independents to a big conglomerate that has sucked up everything from ABC to ESPN and has become adept at throttling the number of voices in the media marketplace. Star Wars comics hold the reputation they have because the expanded universe was built brick by brick at Dark Horse in Milwaukie, Oregon, by some of the best writers and artists around. The mainstream press is quick to refer to the franchise “going back to Marvel Comics” because Marvel published the initial Star Wars series Issues #1-107 back in the 1970s and 1980s, but that series just can’t compare to what was done at Dark Horse, beginning with its Dark Empire series.

If you haven’t read the expanded universe of Star Wars via comic books, you’re missing out. Get to a comic book store now to check out the current monthly Star Wars series while they are still made by the best creators around, including Brian Wood’s Star Wars, which takes place between the events of Star Wars: A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, and The Star Wars, based on George Lucas’s original draft screenplay, each reviewed here last month. We think Dark Horse will have no problem backfilling its market niche with other new series, one of which should be expanding its Firefly/Serenity book line.

Here are some other great Star Wars series published by Dark Horse Comics that you might have missed:

Check out where it all began with Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy’s Dark Empire, Dark Empire II, and a two-issue third act Empire’s End all available in the Star Wars: Dark Empire Trilogy. If you love the original characters of the saga you will be happy with this book. Dave Dorman’s painted cover art for the series is some of the best movie poster quality Star Wars art to appear in print.

Imagine General Skywalker not as a whiny farmboy but as a swaggering force to be reckoned with very much like John Wayne in The Searchers. He’s father of two boys: Annikin, the tough older brother with the look of Alan Tudyk, and Deak, well, Deak is a bit like Anakin, the excited little farmboy from the movie prequels. Imagine a very young Princess Leia Nash with her mother and father and siblings Biggs and Windy on their home planet before war comes along. The Emperor, with the look of Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon, presides over the capital city of Alderaan, where he has aligned his political influences to wipe out the last of the outlawed Jedi, based in the Aquilean System…

We’ve previewed the first issue of The Star Wars, probably the most eagerly awaited Star Wars event since the prequels were first released in theaters, and we think everyone will want to get their hands on this eight-issue mini-series from Dark Horse Comics that hits comic book stores on September 4, 2013. Based on George Lucas’s original rough draft screenplay, you will absolutely find more than a few story and character elements that are better than… dare we say… those found in the original Star Wars: A New Hope movie. Blasphemy? Maybe, but J.W. Rinzler, whose worked we’ve reviewed here at borg.com before, no doubt has connected missing pieces from the Lucas source material to begin for us this intriguing parallel universe of the world of the Jedi-Bendu, the Great Rebellion, and the Knights of Sith. And of course, The Star Wars couldn’t have a better artist on this project with the new futuristic yet familiar worlds required for this story via borg.com favorite artist Mike Mayhew. Mayhew has a way of letting his characters show gripping emotion, conveying in just one panel feelings that some artists never achieve in their work–and his first issue is simply stunning.